MENTALISM a Decade of 1970, now being attacked by the Business Roundtable, is estimated to have saved at least 14,000 lives. It has certainly made life more livable for millions. Unemployment is from 0.2 to 0.4 percent lower today than it would have been without environmental policy legIslation. More than a million new jobs have been created by environmental programming at the cost of less than 25,000 jobs. But the possibility of any long-Tange continuation of an official governmental concern for ecological health is not in the cards. Much of the hope of the environmental movement in recent years has been focused on providing legal remedies to ecological insult, but such efforts are generally out of step with the more traditional role of the courts in America, which has been to protect pnvate property and individual rather than community rights. Since the primary cause for both pollution and natural resource exploitation is the economically appropriate effort of industry to maximize profits undera free market system of production, the courts can hardly be expected OVer the long run to take actions inimical to the welfare of the system of industrial production operative in~t.is country. Since the prospect for any near-range structural change in the government which might balance things out a bit and affirm the rights of nature and people over property and profit seems remOte at best, it is important that CIlVironmentalists understand this basic limiting factor hindering government in such efforts. The first step in constructing an alternative environmental program is to look at some of the strategic errors of our past. It is still possible, in spite of governmental inertias past and present, to construct a real movement of political ecology in America. Government in this country has long understood the wisdom in the old saw that " if you can't beat 'em, Join 'em." In fact, there has been a rather large-scale effort in the last decade to co-opt the environmenta! leadership. A host of mora! and political dilemmas have arisen from this effort. Almost from the very beginning of an organized environmental movement, government has sought to join the movement in order better to contain it. Those with short Mark Anderson April 1981 RAIN Page 5 memories rnay forget that it was, after all, Richard Nixon who verbally supported and financially underwrote many of the events of the first Earth Day in 1970. Given that this Was no more than an effort to distract attention from the war in Vietnam, it did establish a pattern reinforcing an already evident anti-ideological stance of environmentalism which has continued to this day. The cutting edge of the environmental movement sel;'lllS to have passed in the past decade crom those who understood the commonality of concern of radicals of all soTts-environmentalists, Iiberationists, people struggling against war and poverty and sexism and racism-to the more privileged managers In the bureaucracies, the conservationist environmental organizations, and the universities. The combination of the class nature of the movement coupled with its Cll rnmt leadership has made the ideological di mension of environmentalism even less important to its adherents. Good theory is always the foundation of positive change. In an era when the distinctions between Carters and Kennedys and Reagans and Andersons are probably much less than we think, ideo!ogical beginning points ironically become increasingly important lor those who wish to effect change. Given the relativizing effects of politicians, bureaucrats, industrial managers and the self-perpetuating tendencies of the machinery of government, conceptual clarity in the midst of the insistent demand for moderation and conformity becomes a first principle. It is still possible to construct a real movement of political ecology in America. It should be clear to most people that there are real ideological differences in the environmental movement. Not surprising!y, for instance, Third World and working class people have traditionally had little interest in involVing themselves with the sta'ndard brand ecology groups that are rightly perceived to have little concern for or sense of identity with the problems of working people. Too often an apolttica! environmentalism has proVided a diversion from the important task of building political power along existing class lines of American society. [t is true, as earlier critics have noted, that some segments of the ecology movement have tried to shift peopl("s attention from existing issues of power and class struggle to visionary models of a society gently tuned to the imperatives of nature. Ideological clarity by no means implies that politica! ecologists need to be concerned for constructing massive theoretical frameworks. [t simply means that we be concerned for the development of common-sense kinds of guidelines. Who should control natural Tesources and how? How does an organization go about coalition building? What should be the social and political grounds fOJ coalition building" What are the primary and inescapable socia! and economic goals around which the strategies should be built? What are the priorities for education and action toward which the organization should devote maximum energy? How is it possible to utilize the strengths of the organization and minimize the negative effects of its weaknesses? As Saul Alinsky used to tell students enrolled in his organil.ing seminars: "Serious organizers establish early on who they can work with. They are clear about identifying potential friends and real enemies." Without clarity of purpose, such identifications become virtually impossible. cont.-
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